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Hybrid Infiniti’s Allure: Fuel Savings and Power

The Hybrid’s mileage is about 35 percent better than a standard Q50’s.Credit
Nissan North America

For luxury carmakers, no technological parade is complete without a hybrid.

And with Infiniti floating the Q50 sedan as a technology leader, the Q50 Hybrid makes a fair statement by luxury-sedan standards: It actually has a noticeable effect on mileage.

You might see saving fuel as a given. But several luxury hybrids, from the Lexus LS 600h L to BMW’s 5 and 7 Series ActiveHybrids, have had their math out of whack, costing a king’s ransom while delivering a sack of change in savings at the pump.

The Q50 Hybrid is also an expensive way to save money, at $45,205 to start for the Premium model, or $47,005 with all-wheel drive. There’s also a sport-tuned Q50S Hybrid at $47,605, or $49,405 with power to all four wheels.

Those prices are roughly $4,400 more than the nonhybrid versions, which may relegate the Hybrid to the usual niche status. But at least the Infiniti is rated at 29 miles per gallon in town, and 36 on the highway, or 28/35 with all-wheel-drive. That’s a healthy 35 percent bump over the conventional versions.

The Hybrid gets a smaller V6 than that regular Q50, with 3.5 liters and 302 horsepower. But the Hybrid inserts a 50-kilowatt, 67-horsepower electric motor between the engine and a conventional 7-speed automatic transmission. Infiniti’s hybrid system is impressive, discreet and transparent, shuttling power between gas and electric sources to maximize acceleration or economy.

Mash the gas pedal, and a combined 360 horses urge the Infiniti from 0 to 60 m.p.h. in barely five seconds, scattering not just Priuses but slower sport sedans like the Audi A4 and Cadillac ATS. Yet ease down the highway with the engine on hiatus, and the Infiniti goes as quiet as a cemetery at midnight.

All good so far. But if it’s possible, the Hybrid is even more aloof and robotized than the conventional model. Unlike the standard version, the Hybrid comes only with Direct Adaptive Steering, better known as steer-by-wire. The fully electronic steering seems already to be plotting the future demise of its human pilot, using a camera to virtually steer itself along the highway.

From a Vulcan-logic standpoint, credit Infiniti with this brave step toward autonomous driving; but the system, at least in this Version 1.0, leaches fun from what had previously been, in the guise of the G37 predecessor model, a driver-first sedan.

Stuffing in a lithium-ion battery also cuts the trunk space to a meager 9.4 cubic feet, down from 13.5 in other Q50s.

The solace, aside from generous forward thrust, is brag-worthy economy. Alternating relaxed cruising with wanton stabs of the throttle, I ended up at 31 m.p.g., a solid jump over the 22 I observed in the standard model.

That’s excellent mileage for a 360-horsepower luxury sedan. Would-be Andrettis may run screaming, but this Q50’s philosophy dovetails nicely with that of many hybrid fans: Sit back, leave the driving to computers and watch the mileage climb.

A version of this review appears in print on December 15, 2013, on Page AU5 of the New York edition with the headline: Hybrid Infiniti’s Allure: Fuel Savings and Power. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe